With the advent of electronic point of sale terminals, cash registers and the like, large amounts of data are now gathered and stored at the point of sale of goods and services. Such data will typically include the identification of the store and terminal where sales occur, the identification and price of items sold, the date and time of sales, and the employee or cashier making the sales. In addition, electronic point of sale (POS) terminals may be programmed to make simple arithmetic computations and store the results of these computations. The extensive data gathering capabilities of modern electronic POS terminals give business managers a powerful tool in the evaluation and management of important business activities. The data gathered, computed and stored in POS terminals, however, has only minimal value in its raw form. The sheer volume of raw data that is now collected presents substantial challenges to those seeking to monitor and process that data to better manage their business activities. A further obstacle to the effective analysis and evaluation of point of sale data lies in the fact that there is no standardized format for collecting and outputting the data. Each make of electronic terminal and its associated polling package collects and outputs different bits of information in different formats or configurations. Much can be learned about the business if the point of sale data can be compiled in a useable format, analyzed and compared to desired criteria to evaluate and manage related business activities.
So far as applicants are aware, there are presently no systems or methodologies available for managing business activities by comprehensively analyzing and evaluating point of sale data. One method that has been used to analyze cash register data utilizes text files constructed from the raw data collected from the cash registers. The raw data is collected from the various cash registers and assembled into a set of text files. Data collection and text file assembly is accomplished using polling software packages such as Panasonic.RTM. Polling Software, which is used in conjunction with Panasonic.RTM. cash registers. The text files are reformatted into spreadsheets using commercially available spreadsheet software packages customized to reformat the point of sale data. The data is reformatted and analyzed by application of a set of discrete computer programs, commonly referred to as "macros." Each set of macros will typically represent one of the business activities being evaluated by the user. For example, a set of spreadsheet macros might be formulated to analyze labor productivity by identifying relevant data in the text files and then using that data to compute the desired values according to predetermined formulas.
This system of analyzing cash register data has several disadvantages. Because relevant text file data is identified by position, any changes in the text files outputted by the polling package will cause the applicable spreadsheet macros to fail unless corresponding changes are made in the macros. That is, each macro must be re-written every time a change is made to the text files. The time and expense of repeatedly re-writing the spreadsheet macros poses a significant impediment to cost effective analysis and evaluation of point of sale data. In addition, the time required to process the ever increasing amounts of data collected by point of sale terminals using current methods is prohibitive. As electronic terminals have become more powerful, they are able to collect and store more and more data. The rate at which data can be effectively analyzed using text processing and spreadsheet computations slows disproportionately to the amount of data that must be analyzed. There is also a set of calculations or relations that must be done that are not practical or, in some cases, even possible using the spreadsheet metaphor. The reports generated using this method do not alert the user to anomalous performance, nor do the reports allow the user to readily determine the cause of any anomalies. Consequently, business managers are not able to fully utilize the substantial data gathering capabilities of electronic terminals to help them evaluate and manage critical business activities.